Woman Returns Library Book 99 Years Late and It’s Amassed Around a $18,000 Late Fee

The chapter is closed on a missing book at a New Jersey library after a woman returned it nearly a century after her relative checked it out.

While sifting through her mother’s belongings, 81-year-old Mary Cooper stumbled upon a book that was borrowed from the Ocean County Library in Toms River in March 1926, according to the book’s checkout card as seen in footage from area news outlet 6abc Philadelphia.

“This has to have been taken out by my grandfather,” she told the outlet of her mother’s dad, Charles Tilton. “It was supposed to be returned [March 31, 1926], and unfortunately, he passed away the next year. He was a boatwright and a carpenter. I had a boat that he made for my mom.”

In a better-late-than-never moment, Cooper returned the book — Home-Made Toys for Girls and Boys by A. Neely Hall — 99 years later.

“He had a little girl and I’m sure making toys was on his mind,” Cooper added of her late grandfather.

The library, which doesn’t impose late fees anymore, estimated what the fine would have been if late fees still existed for them just for fun. 

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“It would probably, with inflation and everything else, be $18,000 in fines, but we don’t have fines anymore. We are fine-free, which makes it even more easy and accessible for people to enjoy the library,” Sherri Taliercio, the public information officer at Ocean County Library, told 6abc.

“What a serendipitous thing to happen that during our 100th year is when this book got returned,” Taliercio added. “Divine intervention, it really is.”

After returning the book, Cooper got to place the book in a locked glass case in the archives section for library visitors to see.